My Alarm Clock

I should get to bed, my alarm clock is going to get me up at 6:20 AM. That may seem like a good time to get up to you but I rather rise at 8:15, I live a mile from my work. Of course, motherhood, has brought responsibility in my life, I need at least another 10 minutes to get my son ready for daycare. If I have to drive him... add 20 more.

As my son approaches 11 months old - tomorrow! I have now enjoyed about 1.5 months of getting sleep at night (It makes the months before that seem like a distant blur!). We put my son down (isn't that odd to say "put him down") at 7:30. It doesn't matter if he gets a treat to stay up late... every morning at 6:20 him and his invisible friend have vocabulary practice. GRUNT GRUNT, UH OH, GRUNT GRUNT, UH OH, GRUNT GRUNG, MA MA, MA MA. And so it goes until 7 am. As the weather has changed, we have to leave our bedroom doors open so the heat spreads through the house. This is quite loud and hard to ignore. Thankful, about 10% of the time, after breast-feeding for 10 minutes, he will roll on his tummy and let us sleep in. There is no guarantee that this treat will fall on a day when you yourself can join him in this slumber. I've only set my REAL alarm 3 times - in case my new alarm fails me.

Crying It Out

I am writing as my daughter cries and every once in a while screams "mama" from her crib in the next room. Letting her cry it out is the hardest thing I have had to do so far as a parent.

Since she was born she has been the best sleeper. She was usually asleep by the time she finished her nightly feeding or would fall asleep after being rocked for a few moments. In parenting terms, this means I commited a cardinal sin. I let my daughter fall asleep in my arms every night. There was no problem until she turned about 7 1/2 months old and now falls asleep in our arms and then wakes up as soon as we put her in her crib. If we pick her up, she stops crying immediately but once we put her back down it starts all over again. Our only choices now are to move her into our room, sleep on the recliner with her in our arms all night, or let her cry it out. We have chosen to let her cry it out and this has brought both Paul and I at one point or another to tears.

I know most parenting experts recommend not rocking your kids to sleep for this very reason but I still can not recommend that. I love holding my daughter while she falls asleep and watching her little angelic face as she dreams away in my arms. I just want to warn you parents who are like me, you will at some point pay for those precious moments. The up side is that although at night it is torture, she still wakes up a sun shinny baby in the morning.

I have faith that some day the crying it out stage will be behind us. How long did it take all you moms out there to get through it? Any tips? It sounds like little Ava just fell asleep. Tonight it took a half an hour.

When to start solids...

When your little one turns 4 months old the pressure for solids starts... people start asking you if he is on solids yet. There is a rumor out there that rice cereal at night makes babies sleep longer. BUT every scientific study proves it doesn't. What do you do when your pediatrician tells you that that is true though. Supposedly, an infant is ready to swallow some where around 5 months and 1 week. On the other side you have the breastfeeding champions with their banner for 6 months of only breast milk. Like many things in the parenting realm you are not given a one size fits all answer, it is your choice. We will probably start on some weekend between 5.25 and 6 months. We said we were going to start several times after work but then we get tired and forget. I will give you updates!
We started sleep training last night so that will be our main focus for the next two weeks (remember if you have a baby that slept through the night early to NOT complain about other sleep issues, the sleep deprived will want to throttle you!).

Time for a Hotel Night

Signs you may need a night away from baby, a hotel night:

• You pour your cereal into your water glass in the morning, not the bowl you set out
• You open the car door to get out of the car into oncoming traffic
• You keep replacing words in your sentences with completely unrelated words
  
• You have not slept for 8 hours in a row for 4.5 months
• You pumped at work with the blinds open to the outside world
• You pumped at work without putting the bottle on the pump, only noticing when you tipped forward and got milk on your hand and clothes
• You have since pumped at work and forgot to put the bottle on 3 more times - thankfully catching it before the tip forward
• You can't spell you own last name when asked to spell it over the phone
  
• You meet a Realtor to see a house and you are waiting at a different house on the same street
• You keep telling everyone that you have a 4 month old who does not sleep through the night in hopes that they will excuse the confused look on your face

Yes, all these things happened to me in the span of two weeks. After hitting "bottom" on Thursday night, a hotel night gave me enough rest to slightly resemble a human again. No not 8 hours (I had to pump!) but enough for now. You better NOT tell me I look tired!

There is no need to state the obvious

We know we look tired. WE ARE TIRED. If after knowing this, you still feel the need to tell us we look tired you run the risk of "accidentally" being poked in the eye with a binkie.

The only exception to this rule is the sentence "you look tired, let me take the baby so you can take a nap."

P.S I am the mother of a good sleeper and I have a helpful husband. if you tell the mother of a bad sleeper or colicky baby, the mother of multiples multiples, a single mother, or a mother who has more than one child under the age of 5 she looks tired you could be seriously injured.

I wish I understood what lack of sleep meant...

Everyone always tells you that you will not get sleep when you bring your newborn home. You know that this will be true but until you have a newborn under your roof you don't understand what that means. As a parent-to-be you read books and they say that newborns sleep 8 hours at night and 8 hour during the day. That only leaves 8 hour, right? Wrong. To all of you women who have/had sleepers - I am jealous. My little guy still will not sleep much during the day. He also had jaundice at birth so that meant nursing every 2 hours.
So to all you future new mom's out there. Here is how my first month went.
Feed - 45 minutes (YES, 45!) - Burp 10 minutes - Diaper 5 minutes
Then choose 1 activity - eat, shower, or play with baby.
Repeat 12x a day. My guy only had 12 possible hours of sleeping, not 16 and of course he did not always go to sleep after he ate. - V